4:16 Macassae to the Aru Islands 



measure of time. I tested it with my watch, and found that 

 it hai'dly varied a minute from one hour to another, nor did 

 the motion of the vessel have any effect upon it, as the water 

 in the bucket of course kept level. It has a great advantage 

 for a rude people in being easily understood, in being rather 

 bulky and easy to see, and in the final submergence being ac- 

 companied with a little bubbling and commotion of the water, 

 which calls the attention to it. It is also quickly replaced if 

 lost while in harbor. 



Our captain and owner I find to be a quiet, good-tem- 

 pered man, who seems to get on vei'y well with all about him. 

 When at sea he drinks no wine or spirits, but indulges only 

 in coffee and cakes, morning and afternoon, in company with 

 his supercargo and assistants. He is a man of some little edu- 

 cation, can read and write well both Dutch and Malay, uses a 

 compass, and has a chart. Pie has been a trader to Aru for 

 many years, and is well known to both Europeans and natives 

 in this part of the world. 



Dec. 2it1i. — Fine, and little wind. No land in sight for the 

 first time since we left Macassar. At noon calm, with heavy 

 showers, in which our crew wash their clothes, and in the aft- 

 ernoon the prau is covered with shirts, trowsers, and sarongs 

 of various gay colors. I made a discovery to-day which at 

 first rather alarmed me. The two ports, or openings, through 

 which the tillers enter from the lateral rudders, are not more 

 than three or four feet above the surface of the water, which 

 thus has a free entrance into the vessel. I of course had im- 

 agined that this oj^en space from one side to the other was 

 separated from the hold by a water-tight bulkhead, so that a 

 sea entering might wash out at the further side, and do no 

 more harm than give the steersmen a drenching. To my sur- 

 prise and dismay, however, I find that it is completely open to 

 the hold, so that half a dozen seas rolling in on a stormy night 

 would nearly or quite swamp us. Think of a vessel going to 

 sea for a month with two holes, each a yard square, into the 

 hold, at three feet above the water-line — holes, too, which can 

 not possibly be closed ! But our captain says all praus are so ; 

 and though he acknowledges the danger, " he does not know 

 how to alter it — the people are used to it ; he does not under- 

 stand praus so well as they do, and if such a great alteration 



